91 Injured When Police Halt Riot In Kashmir

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30288, 14 November 1963, Page 8

91 Injured When Police Halt Riot In Kashmir

(N.Z P.A. -Reuter—Copyright)

JAMMU (Kashmir), Nov. 11 Police used tear gas and steel-tipped truncheons to break up a riot in protest against the Kashmir Government today. Authorities announced that 91 people had been injured, including 60 policemen. The clash, between police and Right-wing Hindus, lasted two hours. Thirty-one shops and Government buildings were looted or damaged. The riot broke out when members of the opposition Praja Parishad party stoned the Kashmiri Chief Minister (Mr Khwaja Shamsudd), who was on his way by car from Sringar to Jammu, the country’s winter capital. Police units rushed to the area to disperse the demon-

strators, but the crowd turned on Government property, including Jammu’s main police station. One policeman, surrounded by an angry mob, fired his rifle in “self-defence,” a Government spokesman said. Noone was hit. The Chief Minister and his secretariat (trove through the barrage of stones in closed cars. The demonstrators were demanding the dismissal of the National Conference Party Government. ... The opposition party, which represents extremist Hindus, has long opposed Kashmir’s special status under the Indian Constitution. It has demanded that the Kashmir Government be suspended and the State placed under the direct rule of the Indian President (Dr. S. Radhakrishnan).